


Righting Wrongs

by FictionPenned



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alex asked why we even have this lever, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24556705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/pseuds/FictionPenned
Summary: The word echoes, drawn from a dozen memories, and the Doctor sighs, propping her elbows on her knees and burying her face in her hands. “Donna Noble, I’m going to need you to trust me.”After a breath and no answer from Donna, her hands fall away, and she turns her pleading green eyes upward, seeking out Donna’s own. “Please. Give me two minutes. I … I have something to do.”“What. Exactly. Do. You. Need. To. Do?” There’s space between each syllable, and every word sits delicately perched upon a mocking edge.The Thirteenth Doctor restores Donna's memories. For Thirteen Fanzine Prompt Week Day 5: Inner Demons
Relationships: The Doctor & Donna Noble, Thirteenth Doctor & Donna Noble
Comments: 12
Kudos: 125





	Righting Wrongs

The Doctor sees Donna on days when she doesn’t intend to see anyone at all. 

They bump shoulders on a busy London street while the Doctor is too busy looking at the sky to bother considering the people around her, and when their eyes lock, the Doctor thinks that she manages to glimpse a glimmer of recognition in them before fear chills her hearts and stirs her feet and she runs away. 

Another morning, they share a bench in a public park, staring out at a pond and its resident flock of geese and ignoring each other altogether. 

Not long after that, the Doctor walks into a shop to find Donna sifting through a rack of clothes, and immediately flees back to the safety of the TARDIS, hurling a pair of sunglasses across the room and lancing the ship with a thousand accusations tied to tempting fate and destroying timelines. She screams until her voice is worn and ragged, railing against the cruel injustices of the universe, and when she can no longer muster the energy to carry on, she curls up in a corner and breaks into shaking sobs. 

After countless tears shed, a thought dares to brush against the fringes of her mind. It is not her own. It moves strangely and deals in timeless abstractions and would be almost incomprehensible to a human, but the Doctor is not human, and she understands it. The TARDIS sees the universe differently than most living things -- holds past, present, and a thousand possible timelines in its sights at all times and forms that into a language that exists both within time and entirely outside of it -- but the Doctor has learned how to speak it. They know each other well, the Doctor and the TARDIS, better than lovers and closer than friends. Despite the inherent degree of trust that such a relationship implies, the Doctor sees this particular thought, glimpses the heart of it, and shoves it aside with a dismissive huff, “That will never work.”  
  
The TARDIS tries again. It pushes a little harder this time, digs a little deeper, channels a little more intensity.  
  
“No,” The Doctor replies again. She raises a hand and blots the wetness from her cheeks with a too-long sleeve. “It won’t work, I’m not --”  
  
A gong rings throughout the interior of the console room, cutting the Doctor’s protest short and bouncing of pillars and walls with an almost uncharacteristic amount of ferocity. The consciousness of the ship presses against her mind for a third time, insisting that she listen, but the Doctor did listen. She just does not agree.  
  
“I’m not good at that,” she says, green eyes appealing towards the warm glow at the heart of the ceiling. “I’ve never been good at that. It was all I could do. All I’m able to do. I can’t --”  
  
Without permission, the TARDIS dematerializes with a wheezing, groaning rush of the engines, and the Doctor laps to her feet. 

“You can’t. I won’t let you,” she protests, pounding controls and pressing buttons, but the ship refuses to listen. For the first time, she realizes that it was not chance that kept dropping her into Donna Noble’s path, but the TARDIS’ interference. The TARDIS knew what she was doing all along, the blasted, sneaky little --  
  
The ship lurches, shaking both the thought and the Doctor’s hands free.  
  
“We’re going to have a right chat about this later, you and me,” the Doctor says once she regains her balance, looking around at the interior and pointing two fingers at her own eyes before stabbing them into the empty air. “I’m watching you.” As always, it is an empty threat, but it feels better than saying nothing at all.  
  
“Suppose you dropped me back, did ya?” she ganders after a brief pause, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the controls. “I can’t do what you’re asking me to do. I’m just not capable. I don’t have that kind of accuracy. Rubbish telepath, me. Rubbish Time Lord, really. Never quite got a handle on it.”  
  
The TARDIS’ consciousness presses in again, full of memories of wiped minds and forced drownings.  
  
The Doctor waves the criticism away with a dismissive waft of her hand. “Parlor tricks. Nothing substantial. No penalty if I messed up.” Worry leeches onto the back of her tongue, as bitter as fresh bile, and she swallows. “If I do something wrong, if I knit the wrong neurons back together, Donna dies. She _burns_ , and she dies, and I’ve had enough of that for one lifetime, thank you _very_ much.”  
  
Her lip curls in displeasure, but the TARDIS does not stop pushing.  
  
Donna’s protests echo in her skull, the moment of betrayal playing over and over again. “I saved her,” the Doctor insists. “I didn’t --” She pauses again, bracing herself and gathering her racing thoughts into something coherent enough to be meaningful, “I didn’t kill her. She still has a life, she still is Donna, she just...doesn’t know who I am.” The thought bleeds into another, even darker than its predecessor. “She just doesn’t know what she did, who she became, who she is and could be. _The best temp in the universe_.”  
  
The words glow with such untempered fondness that it burns, and the Doctor draws back with a hiss. “Maybe _you_ could,” she spits at the ship, attempting to shrug off and reallocate the responsibility.  
  
Another ding sounds from deep within the engines, and the Doctor scoffs in reply. “Course you could. Doesn’t have to be the same telepath undoing the mistake. No rule about it, especially when one of us a bit awful.”  


Telepathic doors slam shut, and behind her, the front doors swing inward, letting in unfiltered sunlight and the sounds of a bustling street.

“Suppose that means the conversation’s over, does it?” The Doctor says aloud this time. Booted feet mark a tired circle and she flings her arms wide. “Too cowardly to help me?” 

There is no answer.

The Doctor’s words ring in her ears, butting up against the promises that marked the end of her last life and the beginning of this one. 

_Never cruel. Never cowardly._  
  
Guilt is a tremendous motivator, and much to her chagrin, she steps out of the TARDIS and into the dreaded world of Donna Noble.

  
  
With great hesitation, the Doctor walks up to the familiar door and rings the bell. She takes a great inhale of breath and leans back on her heels, doing her best to keep from embracing that primeval instinct to turn tail and run away from all of this as fast as she can, but nothing happens. No one answers. The door stays shut. She tries again, and still there is no answer. A restless, nervous itch grows beneath her skin, and she bangs on the knocker more times than is strictly prudent, and the door finally opens to reveal a shock of red hair and a sneer.  
  
“Whatever you’re selling, we don’t want it here.”  
  
The Doctor can’t help herself. Both hearts leap into her chest and she takes a nervous step backward, stumbling down the short set of stairs that mark the approach to the threshold. It takes a minute for her to summon up enough courage to speak. The TARDIS and her guilt may have convinced her to come here, but the Doctor is still afraid that the ship’s counsel was misguided, and she might end up tearing Donna out of this universe in a futile effort to right an unrightable wrong.  
  
“No, I -- I’m an old friend.”  
  
Donna’s eyes narrow. The Doctor knows that look well. She saw it a thousand times back when she wore pinstriped suits and carried two woefully broken hearts, and it never boded well for any of its subjects, her past self included.  
  
“I don’t think you are.”  
  
The Doctor coughs, rocking her weight from heel to toe as she seeks to come up with something, anything, that might convince Donna to allow her to stick her foot in the door. She just needs to be close enough to touch her, close enough to press fingers to her temples, close her eyes, and hope that her negligible skills were good enough to rewrite memories without setting the woman’s brain on fire.

“That’s the problem, actually. Do you mind?” The Doctor gestures vaguely in the direction of the forbidden hallway that lurks above and behind Donna’s shoulder. “I’m not selling anything or robbing the place. Never been a good salesman, and my days as a thief are long behind me. “Promise.”  
  
Perhaps it is the desperation that tears at the edges of the Doctor’s voice or the flickering of familiarity in the depths of Donna’s eyes, but after a long moment and despite the continued protests clearly perched upon the tip of the woman’s tongue, Donna takes a careful step backward and opens the door a little bit further.  
  
“In you go, then. Minute you start poking your nose where it doesn’t belong, I’m calling the police and throwing you back out here, mind.”  
  
A tiny smile flickers at the corners of the Doctor’s lips, full of relief.  
  
“Don’t ask for tea,” Donna snaps as soon as the Doctor steps across the threshold, closing the door behind her with a sharp flick of the wrist. “Don’t have any.”  
  
The Doctor shoves her hands into the pockets of her coat in an attempt to look as innocent as possible as she peers around at the interior of the house. There are photos of friends and families perched on shelves, a bit of mess shoved in corners, and papers spread chaotically across any open surface near the door. It’s mostly junk mail, but a couple handwritten envelopes sit near the surface. The Time Lord’s tongue sneaks between her lips as she considers asking whether or not Donna lives alone, but she thinks better of it. There had been a husband at some point or another. No telling whether or not he's still around, but it's best not to ask. Best not to seem too suspicious, lest Donna end up carrying through on her threats, however, being innocuous runs against every single one of the Doctor’s natural instincts. The Doctor’s always been a bit of a party looking for a place to happen, so to speak.  
  
“Can we sit?” she asks, lifting her chin and attempting to school her face into as earnest an expression as possible. “Always a bit easier to think on a sofa, isn’t it? Course, I don’t have one myself, so I suppose it’s easier to think on somebody else’s sofa.” She catches herself rambling and shrugged, attempting to play it off as a natural train of thought.  
  
Donna clearly does not buy into the feigned nonchalance, but nonetheless, she steps past the Doctor and leads the way to the sitting room, pointing towards the sofa. The Doctor immediately sinks into it, feeling the worn cushions give way beneath her, but Donna remains standing, arms crossed defiantly over her chest.

Worry flickers in the Doctor’s eyes. That won’t do. She needs them to be on the same level, needs to be able to convince her to let them touch long enough that she can remedy her mistake. After a moment of hesitation, she says, “I’d really feel a bit better if you sat, too.”

“Fat chance of that.”

A sigh trickles from the Doctor’s nose. “Please? I’m much better at telling stories that way. Get all antsy if I feel like I have an audience. Look at this space here. It’s awkward. I can’t do awkward.”

Perhaps it’s the absurdity of the words or that same, familiar tug of familiarity, but eventually, Donna crosses the distance between them and sits. She’s not comfortable, but she’s there. “You going to start telling me who you are or what?” 

“See, er, well, that’s a bit tricky. I can’t tell you, I have to show you.” Nerves race beneath the surface of the Doctor’s skin, propelled by the frantic beating of twin hearts. 

“You a weirdo or something? Oh my god, did I let a weirdo into my house? You one of those spiritualists or something? You gonna start telling me about past lives? There’s no dead queens in my head, mate.” 

_Mate_. 

The word echoes, drawn from a dozen memories, and the Doctor sighs, propping her elbows on her knees and burying her face in her hands. “Donna, I’m going to need you to trust me.” 

After a breath and no answer from Donna, her hands fall away, and she turns her pleading green eyes upward, seeking out Donna’s own. “Please. Give me two minutes. I … I have something to do.”

“What. Exactly. Do. You. Need. To. Do?” There’s space between each syllable, and every word sits delicately perched upon a mocking edge. 

“Can I?” 

Hesitantly, the Doctor reaches forward, settling gentle fingers on the sides of Donna’s temples and closing her eyes. 

She feels her Donna tense beneath her touch as a sharp tongue starts on another tirade. “Oi! You are one of the spiritualists, aren’t --”

The Doctor sends a thought and the words lapse into silence. She takes a deep breath, steeling both her body and mind as she desperately tries to chase away the lingering remnants of her doubt and fear. Once she starts, there is no going back. She has one chance and one chance only, and the consequences are certain death. 

But the rewards are fixing mistakes and righting wrongs and giving Donna back the memories that she had stolen from her. Now that she knows that her own history has been stolen from her, erased for millennia after millennia, she knows how much of a betrayal it is to rob someone of their memories, even if you claim that it lies in their best interest. 

Carefully and delicately -- though both descriptors fight against every single one of her instincts -- the Doctor begins to knit Donna’s mind back together. She rejoins memories back to the central cortex, making the inaccessible accessible, but careful to skirt the bits and pieces of herself that had been thrust upon Donna. She keeps only the things that are Donna and none of the things that are the Doctor’s own. It’s easy. Too easy. So easy that she wonders why she hadn’t done it in the first place, why she had allowed fear and doubt to consume her so much that she saw no other possible outcome but the worst possible one. 

She almost makes a mistake when a particularly stubborn memory snags on a knotted mess of Time Lord essence, but she takes a deep breath and allows herself to untangle the threads without panicking. 

It does not take two minutes to fix Donna’s mind. It takes hours, and by the time the Doctor manages to look back upon her finished work, breathe a sigh of relief, and retreat back into her own mind, the room has grown dark around them. 

“Get off of me, you big oaf.” Donna says, shoving the Doctor away. 

There’s a moment of bleary confusion as Donna processes the change in her mind, as she glances between the Time Lord before her and the room that has suddenly become shrouded in darkness. 

“Doctor, is that you?” Donna’s question is nervous, but glee flares in the Doctor’s chest. Warm and bright and beautiful. 

“The one and only.”

Moving faster than anyone has ever moved, Donna slaps the Doctor across the cheek. Hard.

The Doctor touches the sore spot with the very tips of her fingers, and a grin spreads across her face. It speaks of old days in pinstriped suits and converses and reading glasses. Days long lost and half-forgotten. Days of terrible lows and glorious highs.

“Welcome back, Donna Noble!”  
  
"That's Donna _Temple-Noble_ to you, isn't it?"   
  
The Doctor's grin lingers.  
  
Oh, how she _missed this_. 


End file.
